Schools

Content Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

Posted on October 15, 2015

New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.

Global Issues In Context

  • A new portal page has been added featuring the South Sudan Civil War.
  • Over 25 portal pages have been updated including Dementia, Gun Control, Nobel Prize, Obama Administration: Foreign Policy, Political Corruption, Russia-Ukraine Conflict, Same-sex Marriage, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

The Future is Now in Biography in Context

By Traci J. Cothran

“Roads?  Where we’re going we don’t need roads!” – Doc Brown

It’s hard to believe the first Back to the Future movie – starring Michael J. Fox – was released thirty years ago – 30 YEARS AGO!  It may also surprise you to note that the “future” date visited via the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie is October 21, 2015 … which puts us officially in The Future.

Our editors on Biography in Context uncovered this fast fact recently, and currently feature Michael J. Fox (a.k.a. Marty McFly or Calvin) on the home page. We recently launched a new hotspotter feature in Biography in Context  allowing users to hover on the pulsing circles on the picture to explore more facts about the subject (in this case, Parkinson’s Disease).

Read moreThe Future is Now in Biography in Context

National Parks “Every Kid in a Park” Initiative Underway

Posted on October 14, 2015

By Jan Snyder

“Because no matter who you are, no matter where you live, our parks, our monuments, our lands, our waters – these places are your birthright as Americans.”
– President Barack Obama

This year begins a new exciting adventure for 4th grade students across the nation, along with their families.  Through the Every Kid in a Park initiative, each student/family is eligible for a free parks pass that will allow them to enter, without cost, any national park, monument, reserve, lands or waters until August 31, 2016.  (It does not cover additional fees such as camping, boats, or tours.) No matter where you live in the U.S. you are less than two hours from any of the 2,000 included sites!

Learn how the program works, get a pass, plan a trip, find teacher activities to support the initiative, and get tips for parents or guardians. Many school districts are creating wonderful teacher resources to support the initiative as well.  Our neighboring school district, Portland Public Schools, has published a supporting website with teaching materials to support the Every Kid in a Park program.

Oregon City school libraries’ staff plans to be involved with this project all year.  We will be printing individual passes for all 4th grade students in our district (each has a unique code.). As our elementary students visit the library weekly, one library class a month will be used at the 4th grade level to focus on a different national park.  We have a variety of resources at our fingertips to help with this process:

Read moreNational Parks “Every Kid in a Park” Initiative Underway

Research In Context Meets the Needs of Middle Grade Students

“Teaching middle school is an adventure not a job,” says author and educator, Angela K. Bennett. There’s no doubt grades 6 to 8 are among the most important for young teens and pre-teens to develop learning skills to launch them into high school and beyond. And until now, resources to support an integrated learning adventure have been few and far between, making teaching and supporting learning for this curious group a challenge. But the tide is turning with a new highly-visual resource featuring authoritative content that’s been designed specifically for middle school learners.

Read moreResearch In Context Meets the Needs of Middle Grade Students

Content Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/9/2015)

Posted on October 8, 2015

New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.

Biography In Context
New homepage spotlights have been posted that include the “hotspot” feature. This feature allows users to hover over portions of an image on the home page enabling a pop-up window to appear with fast facts about the topic or links to additional content.

Spotlights for October are:

Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/9/2015)

Content Updates for Kids InfoBits (week ending 10/9/2015)

Posted on October 8, 2015 New “infobits” have been added to the homepage for October. Categories and subjects covered include: People: Halloween Technology: iPod revealed in 2001 Social Studies: Columbus Day and Thanksgiving Day in Canada Plants: Rose as National Flower Science: First Motion Picture Arts: Landscape Painting Animals: Turkeys    Air Jordan 1 Retro … Read more

TEL & Career Transitions: Connecting People with Jobs

By Steven Hicks and Kim Martin

For job seekers, libraries play a crucial role in career discovery, development, and overall assistance. In fact, almost one quarter of library visitors are there to look or apply for a job, according to the Pew Research Center. 1. To further solidify the library’s role as a hub for employment resources, in July, 2014 President Obama signed into law the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, identifying public libraries as potential partners of the American Job Center network, and acknowledging libraries’ ability to provide an expansive array of job search services.

Career Transitions, an online resource from Gale, assists users with career exploration and offers a complete, personalized and guided experience from assessing strengths and interests, to finding new career opportunities, to ultimately completing professional resumes and improving the chances of landing jobs.

Read moreTEL & Career Transitions: Connecting People with Jobs

Gale Technical Solutions: Organizing Electronic Resource Pages

By Scott Steward

Let’s talk about some best practices for organizing electronic resource pages.

It doesn’t matter if you are an academic, K12, public, or special library; if you boil down what we do to its simplest definition, our primary goal is to connect people to information.

Our users are already using tools like Google and Bing in their everyday lives to find information.  E.g. Who makes the best cup of coffee? What is the cheapest flight to Las Vegas? What is the carrying weight of a swallow? 

Read moreGale Technical Solutions: Organizing Electronic Resource Pages

Educators: Here’s a Fun Way to Encourage Critical Thinking and Research Skills!

Posted on 9/28/15

By Traci J. Cothran

Looking for a great way to engage students, where they can research a topic of their choice and present their findings in a format (including digital!) that fits their skillset?  The National History Day competition does just that, by providing students with a broad annual theme within which they’ll select their own subject; encouraging them to research, use, and document primary sources related to their chosen subject; then presenting their findings by creating an exhibit, paper, performance, website or documentary.

Read moreEducators: Here’s a Fun Way to Encourage Critical Thinking and Research Skills!

Content Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 9/25/2015)

Posted on September 24, 2015

New content has been added and existing content has been updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.

Biography In Context

New portals were launched for Biography In Context this week. They include:

  • Popular MMA fighter Ronda Rousey
  • Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia
  • Prime Minister of Thailand Prayut Chan-o-cha
  • Late poets Lucille Clifton and Denise Levertov

Updates have been made for content reflecting the ousting of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, the retirement of Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and the recent passing of Moses Malone.

Narrative content has been added for:

Contemporary Black Biography, Volumes 125 and 126 which covers 110 biographies across the 2 volumes. Some of the individuals covered include:

  • Jeh Hohnson U.S. Homeland Security head
  • Somali-American runner Abdi Abdirahman
  • American ballet dancer Misty Copeland
  • British actor David Oyelowo
  • Zimbabwean author NoViolet Buluwayo
  • Joseph Kabila, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 9/25/2015)